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Lin-Manuel Miranda has 'learned lessons' from criticism of his projects

Lin-Manuel Miranda has insisted he's "learned lessons" from the response to his projects, including the colourism controversy surrounding In the Heights.

The movie musical, which is based on Miranda's Broadway stage production of the same name, came under fire when it was released in June for the lack of Afro-Latino actors.

At the time, director Jon M. Chu and Miranda both released statements, with the director explaining that casting came down to "the people who were best" for the roles and the Hamilton creator saying that the film tried to "paint a mosaic of this community" but they "fell short".

In a new interview with The New Yorker, the Tony winner addressed the criticism again, this time hitting back at the idea that he was "cancelled" for the lack of representation.

"Once something has success, you're not the underdog trying to make it happen anymore," he told the publication. "You have to graduate past the mind-set of, like, It's a miracle I got something on the stage. Because now that is expected of me. And people go, 'Yeah, but what about this? And what about this?' And that's fair! I do that with art I find lacking.

"It's not cancellation. That's having opinions. So I try to take it in that spirit. The challenge I find myself in is, how do I stay hungry? How do I still feel like I have something to say and not worry about what is not in the frame? I’m just trying to build the frame in the first place. Certainly, I have learned lessons from the reception of my work, good, bad, and indifferent. You try to take all of it, and whatever sticks to your gut is what you bring with you to your next project."

He added that he has to push past his fear of wondering how the masses will respond to his next piece of work.

"If you get yourself into a place of fear, of 'What are people going to say about what I write?', you’re f**ked. It’s over," he shared. "And that’s a place I have to really push past now in a different way. At the end of the day, you can’t control how the world receives something. All you can control is what your intentions were."